


Only One Night

by Charlie9646



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Depression, Drinking, F/M, Family Issues, Friendship, Lack of Understanding, Naked Weasley Fest, Talking, Transgender Male Character, Transphobia, self hatred
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-07
Updated: 2020-07-07
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:21:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24565300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Charlie9646/pseuds/Charlie9646
Summary: Only one night can change a life; if only you allow it to do so.Tonks has a secret and Bill just wants someone to understand.
Relationships: Nymphadora Tonks/Bill Weasley
Comments: 10
Kudos: 26
Collections: Hermione's Nook Naked Weasley Fest!





	Only One Night

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you Highlyintelligentblonde for betaing this

The sound of the rain filled Bill’s ears, splatting down on his unruly red hair. The sound of his leather boots hitting the cobblestones filled his ears. He was home from Egypt trying to find some sort of distraction. Things were tense at home, it wasn’t truly anyone’s fault.

Not his mum’s, not his dad’s, not Charlie’s, well maybe it was Ron’s with his need to shout at anyone who would listen that his sister had become his brother, with sheer and utter joy. And Ginny’s with her excited giggling that his former toys were hers. Not that Bill wanted them to begin with, but it was the principle of the fact his little sister didn’t even ask.

She was the youngest, so in a way it was to be expected. But, the truth was it wasn’t children’s toys or his brother being proud of having another brother…No it was the looks his mum gave him. The time he stepped out of the shower with a towel around his waist just like he would have in Egypt. In a way, it was a right of passage.

“You let them mutilate you!” Molly shouted, her face turning the shade of her hair. Her blue eyes the size of saucers. “How could you?”

“I was always supposed to be this way!” Bill spat. “I know it’s hard for you to understand, but this was right for me.”

“How do you know for sure?” She asked him, pulling her son to her, “how could you permanently alter your body on a whim?”

“It wasn’t a whim mother, it’s been my whole life I’ve wanted this.”

“You never told me…”

“Don’t you dare say that name!” Bill cried out. “Don’t you dare, bloody well dare!”

Bill bolted into his room, he dressed, pulling on his clothes not caring what they looked like. And Bill ran, his feet carrying him out of his childhood home, away from his family, away from baited comments, snide remarks, and the twins’ stupid jokes. They didn’t mean them, not truly, but when it all came out in the wash it was still quite painful. Their words, her words cut like a knife.

That was how he ended up there that night, walking outside the club. That’s when he heard it, shouting.

“Show us your face girlie! Your real one!” The man shouted, “we can’t let you in unless we know what you actually look like, you freak of nature.”

“I’m not a freak, you bloody creep!” The woman growled, wait Bill knew that voice… “And this is my fucking face.”

It was Tonks!

He hadn’t seen her in years, not since he graduated Hogwarts and they had that fight. The one that left them not on speaking terms. They were easy to find standing outside of the club. Tonks with her hot pink hair and a rather disgruntled bouncer. The man’s black hair stuck up in greasy clumps.

“Hey! You!” Bill snarled, “leave the girl alone.”

“This isn’t any of your business, so stay out of it.”

“Weasley, I don’t need you to protect me,” she said.

“I will. When your girlfriend over here stops playing that stupid game of hers, bloody changeling.”

“He’s not my boyfriend!”

“Well…It doesn’t matter with you being a Black and what your cousin did if I can’t see your real face I can’t allow you in.”

“Fine!” Tonk shouted, “I don’t want in your stupid club anyway.” She spun on her heel slamming into Bill as she walked past him. “Weasley, finally decided to be yourself and stop trying to be something you are not?”

“Yes.” There honestly wasn’t much to say about that, what could he add? What was the point? Dora was Dora and she made it clear how she felt about him.

Tonks turned back around to face him. Her leather jacket hanging off her shoulders, standing there in the dim moonlight getting soaked by the rain.

“Are you just going to stare at me or are we going to find some decent whiskey?” She asked, “not that watered shit Charlie used to get us.”

“Aren’t you still angry at me?” Bill asked her, shocked that Tonks was even talking to him. “Considering what you said back there.”

Tonks walked back over to Bill and rested her hand onto his cheek, “Nope, because you seem to no longer be the self-hating jerk I remember, but that doesn’t mean I want to date you.” Tonk laughed, “But that doesn’t mean we can’t drink for old time’s sake. Now, what’s your name?”

“Bill. Well William like my one uncle, but I prefer Bill.”

“Well, Bill, it’s nice to meet you,” she said, taking his hand as she did so. “Come on, I know a bar down the road.”

His heart felt lighter at the touch of her hand. The feeling of acceptance warmed his heart in a way nothing else ever had before.

**************************

The bar was dingy and dim. Scuffed oak wood floors, and a bar made of the same material. But there was no one here telling Tonks to show her “true” face. Whatever that meant.

Bill sat down next to his old friend and hung her jacket on the back of his chair.

“Two fire whiskeys, please,” Tonks said to the bartender, whose pale dishwater blonde hair fell into her thin face.

The woman smiled at them both and poured them two glasses of firewhiskey. It wasn’t the cheap stuff, from the looks of the label. Merlin, Bill thought, he couldn’t afford something like this. Even if he hadn’t forgotten his money at the burrow after leaving in such haste.

“Friend, it’s on me, for old time sake. Don’t worry. Call it repayment for all the times you and Charlie had treated me.”

Bill let out a soft sigh of relief, reaching for his own glass taking a small sip. The burn warmed him to his very core taking some of the chill from his bones. Tonks smiled at him. She was pretty, he had always thought that she was, but in the years that had passed Tonks had only gotten prettier. Short wavy bubblegum pink hair, bright blue eyes, and a smile that seemed to light up the room.

“I missed you,” Bill said, softly.

“I…I’m happy you decided to tell your family who you really are,” she said, turning and facing him, reaching out to take his hand in her own. “And decided to be your true self.”

“I…”

“Don’t start, Bill,” Tonks said. “I know why you couldn’t. That doesn’t mean I don’t think it’s better that you did. But, I will say this seeing you happy now is worth it. I missed you too.”

She pulled her hand from his and reached out to tuck a bit of his hair behind his ear. Tonks kept ordering glass after glass of fire whiskey and they drank each down quicker than the last. Bill became happier and Tonks started touching her friend more. A hand on his arm turned into a thumb on his cheek, which turned into resting her hand on his inner thigh.

Bill knew in his heart that he shouldn’t allow her to do this, that he shouldn’t encourage her, but he was in far too deep.

“You know why I couldn’t show him my face? The bouncer I mean,” she whispered, Tonks pulled out a cigarette and lit it. Puffing the silvery blue smoke into Bill’s face. “Because I look like her. Because I look like them.”

“What does that even mean?”

“I will show you mine if you show me yours.”

“Huh?” He said, biting his lip. Wondering what his old friend meant mulling it over in his rather drunk mind.

“Come there are rooms upstairs, we can rent one. I’ll show what I mean,” she said, taking his hand. “Mel, one room for the night, though we shouldn’t need it for more than an hour or so.”

They seemed like old friends of sorts, the way the bartender looked at her as she tossed her a pair of keys.

“First door on the right, up the stairs,” Mel laughed. “And have some fun kids. You both look like you need it.”

“But… What? How?” Bill spluttered, clearly confused. “We aren’t… She’s just a friend.”

“Sweetheart, sure. I’ve seen the way you two look at each other, I’ve been watching you all night.”

“Come on Bill,” Tonks snapped, clearly quite drunk, far drunker than Bill was. “I need to do this. I don’t know exactly why but I just… I just do.”

For as long as Bill could remember he had been putting others first, it was just a part of being the oldest in his family. It was just part of being a Weasley. But, for once he nearly said no. Bill needed to get home. He needed to sleep this off, but the look in Tonks’ eyes said that she needed him to do this. Whatever in the world she needed him to do. Bill stood, grabbing his leather jacket off the back of the chair, clutching Tonks’ hand and following her to the upstairs room.

His friend stuck the brass key in the doorknob once they reached it, shoving it open with her shoulder, slamming it against the wall as she did so. The room was as dark as the blackest night, and had a faint smell of stale cigarette smoke. It wasn’t geared to people who could afford any better. It was for one-night-stands and people who were just passing through.

It was for people like a blood traitor and the daughter of a Muggleborn.

“Promise you will not go running away screaming?” She asked him, once Bill had sat down on the bed, which took quite a bit of fumbling around for. “And Weasley, remember you’re a wizard don’t you? Lumos.” Tonks used her own wand to do the spell lighting up the dark room with a warm glow.

Bill grabbed the matchbox and lit a few candles that were around the room. Then he set it back down on the rickety nightstand.

“I promise no matter what I won’t go running away screaming,” Bill mused. “Unless you’re going to tell me you’re actually a Death Eater.”

“No, not a Death Eater,” Tonks muttered. “But with this face someone might suggest it.”

Bill tugged sharply onto his bright red-orange hair.

“My little brother shouts every time we are in public together that I am his sister that became his brother. The twins, well somehow they turned all of my undershirts bright pink, and my mum well said I mutilated myself.” He said, with much scorn, well as much as he could muster up.

“Bill…It will just take time and then I have a feeling that they will accept you,” she said, sitting down next to him and taking his hand. “My mum calls your dad the fixer of broken things, and your mum the adopter of strays. They are good people, it's just… Hard at times. To learn to accept something so different from what you are used to.”

“Easy to say when they aren’t your parents.”

“My parents aren’t any better, you know that, right?” Tonks asked, though she didn’t expect an answer. “My mum is a wonderful person, though sometimes she says things…Things her parents used to say. I don’t think mum really even means it. And dad, well he’s scared, rightfully so. The Death Eaters had a rather bad habit of going after their own relatives and in-laws. Aunt Bella is bloody nuts.”

“I am sorry and I don’t know what to say.”

Tonks pulled out a cigarette and lit it. “You and me both, my friend. You and me both.” She asked him, “want one?”

“Sure,” Bill took it from her and lit it. He took a hit off of it, the nicotine bringing him comfort and reminding him that his feet were still on solid ground. That he was still on solid ground. “Now what is this deep dark secret of yours, though you only have to show me it if you want to that is.”

Tonks sighed and then her body began to morph, twisting and changing as it did so. Then in an instant gone was her boyish features, bright pink hair, though she still had her shocking blue eyes. In its place was a beautiful woman, with sharp features. She had wild thick and heavy black curls, rosy cheeks and pale skin.

“You’re beautiful Tonks,” he murmured, slightly awestruck. “Why do you change yourself into someone else?”

“I am not changing myself into someone else!” Tonks snarled, looking rather scary as she did so. “That’s me. Just like you weren’t who you used to be! This? This is her and a little bit of him.”

“What’s wrong with looking like your parents?”

“I don’t look like my parents William Weasley! I look like her. I look like Bellatrix Fucking Lestrange, and the bloody traitor Sirius Black! That way? I get to just be me.” She screamed, sounding quite irate as she did so. “Like that?”

Tonks changed herself back, “I’m seen as a monster. Looked upon with scorn and hatred for something I can’t control. Like this I’m just Tonks and that’s how I prefer it to be.”

Bill sighed, saying nothing, he had always been the type for action far more than words. This would show her. This would show he understood her. Maybe it was the whiskey clouding his mind, but Bill began unbuttoning his shirt.

“What are you doing?” Tonks asked him, her blue eyes wide.

“You told me you would so me yours if I showed you mine and you went first, so now I am just returning the favor.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I want to,” Bill said. “Just let me do this, okay? I hated myself growing up. Mum was so happy I was a girl, always going on about how she thought that maybe at first I might have been a boy, but then grandpa made a comment and she knew in her heart I was a girl. My sweet little girl is what she always used to say to me. Maybe it was because until Ginny she was in a house full of boys, well besides me. Hogwarts didn’t help. Living in the girls dorm room, wearing the girls uniform and feeling like I was drowning most days. That’s why we had that fight…The one when I was…”

“You don’t have to say it,” she said, patting his thigh with her small hand.

Bill pulled off his shirt. Standing up and facing Tonks.

“You can see these, they were worse than before, and they should only get better with time.”

His scars were only six months old, raised, bright pink, cutting across his chest as if someone had tried to cut him in half and failed. Bill was happy to have them, they brought him joy, but also frustration and pain. It wasn’t like taking a potion or snapping your fingers. It was a process, and it took time to heal. But, honestly even then they would always be there. Even when they faded to nearly invisible - he would know that the scars were there.

Bill only hoped one day he could take pride in them, but today was not the day.

“We all have secrets and shame, Tonks,” Bill said, tracing his scar with a finger. “We’ve just been taught not to show it.”

“I don’t want to go back home, not tonight at least,” she whispered, mournfully. “I said some things to my mum, I don’t know why I did…I just did.”

“You did rent the room for a night, we might as well use it.” He remarked. “I don’t want to go home tonight either. My own mother said some things. I am sure she didn’t mean them, but I don’t think I can face her.”

“There’s only one bed though.”

“We are just two old friends, I don’t mind sharing if you don’t either.”

“I don’t,” Tonks said, smiling up at him as she did so. She took off her jeans and set them on the wooden chair by the window, setting her jacket on top of it.

“Do you mind if I sleep in just my boxers?” Bill asked her, he felt his cheeks heat up. “It’s what I do normally now. His hand went to his too long hair tugging at it sharply, trying to desperately hide his nervousness.

“Bill Weasley I’ve known you since I was eleven years old, and I’ve stayed over at your house more times than I can count. You’re my best friend and it’s not like I haven’t seen it before.”

“But what about earlier?”

“I don’t even know what you are talking about…” Tonks surely was pretending that she didn’t know. “It must have just been the whiskey, we both drank far too much.”

“Sure, sure, we both drank too much,” he muttered. “Maybe the whiskey simply mulled my own mind.” Bill wished and in some ways even knew it wasn’t likely the case. But, if the only option was to be her friend? We then he would take it. It was far more important, anyway, after finally getting it back.

Bill folded his own shirt, then pulled off his jeans, setting them and his jacket on top of Tonks’. He climbed into bed with her and she laid her head on his chest.

“Bill?” She said, softly. “I think your scars are cool.”

“I think you are pretty, any way you look,” Bill answered back. “And if anyone ever calls you a changeling or insists you have to show them your ‘real’ face? They can take it up with me. And if they say anything about you being related to Bellatrix? Remind them that half the wizarding world is and there’s a good chance so are they.”

“I missed you,” Tonks said. “But, it’s gonna be hard for you to defend my honor from Egypt.”

“You could join me there…” He said. “If you wanted to that is. I think you could make a wonderful curse breaker if you wanted to.”

“I would and I think that could be wonderful, but I can’t…Moody, the Auror offered to put in a good word for me and if I get accepted he offered to train me. I’m going to take it. He said something about the third time being a charm, but you know how Moody is…He’s.”

“Strange,” Bill finished for her. “It could be anything or nothing at all with the way he is.”

“He was a Slytherin, did you know that?” She asked, “just like my mum. Maybe that’s why he doesn’t judge me. Because he knows that all that matters is who you are, not your family or even your house at Hogwarts.”

“I didn’t but it doesn’t surprise me,” he said softly. “Now good night, Tonks.”

“Goodnight, Bill.”

The next day Tonks was gone and so were all of her things, besides a note sitting on her pillow.

You are worthy of love my friend, you are worthy of happiness and one day you will find it.

Love, a friend.

Stepping out into the sunlight from the dingy bar, which looked far worse in the light of day.

One night can change everything if you only allow it to.


End file.
